The 2018-19 offseason got off on the wrong foot for the Yankees. During the annual end-of-season press conferences, the team announced Didi Gregorius tore his ulnar collateral ligament and needed Tommy John surgery. He had the surgery almost a month ago now, and it will sideline him early next season. It’s unclear when Gregorius will return. May? June? September? 2020? No one really knows.

Had the injury happened a year or two earlier, the Yankees would’ve signed the arbitration-eligible Gregorius to a one-year contract and moved forward with him like nothing ever happened. That isn’t the case now. Didi will be a free agent next offseason and he’s projected to make $12.4M in 2019. That’s a lot of money to pay a rehabbing player who could leave next winter. It could end up being money for nothing, or close to nothing.

“We’ll hopefully keep him for a long time,” said Brian Cashman to Ken Davidoff last week. “I’m not focused on it right now. I’m a big fan of the player. I don’t think Tommy John will be a career-ending issue for him, like it typically isn’t. It’s a problem that we all have to deal with. How we deal with it remains to be seen. But he’s wired the right way. So he’s the type of person you like to surround yourself with, not run from.”

The Yankees operate on a budget because every team operates on a budget. Their current budget seems to be smaller than it has been in the past — “Is it a definite line in the sand? I wouldn’t say that’s the case. I’d say it’s a preference,” said Cashman to Billy Witz last week when asked about staying under the $206M luxury tax threshold — so every dollar counts. We all love Didi, but paying him $12.4M to rehab may not be the best idea.

The non-tender deadline is a little more than two weeks away and I don’t see the Yankees non-tendering Gregorius. That would allow other teams to jump in the mix, and, even though he’ll spend at least part of next season rehabbing, I get the sense there would be a bidding war for a 28-year-old two-way shortstop, and the Yankees would end up paying even more to keep Didi than they would by simply tendering him. A non-tender is possible, but unlikely.

Barring a trade, which seems incredibly unlikely for many reasons, I see five possible outcomes for Gregorius’ contract situation this offseason. Here are the five outcomes listed in order of what I think is most likely to least likely:

One-year contract at his projected salary (or thereabouts).

Two-year contract with a reduced 2019 salary.

Long-term contract that keeps Didi in pinstripes another four or five years.

An arbitration hearing, which results in a one-year contract.

One-year contract at a reduced salary, meaning smaller than his 2018 salary ($8.25M).

Starting at the bottom, what reason does Gregorius have to sign a one-year deal at a reduced salary? He doesn’t owe the Yankees anything. Gregorius and his representatives can tell the Yankees that, if they want a reduced salary, either non-tender him and see what the market says, or file salary figures and try to get the arbitration panel to side with you. No player has ever had his salary reduced through arbitration. The best case for the Yankees is a smaller raise than expected. The arbitration panel bases their decision on past accomplishments, not future projections.

A one-year contract at the projected salary is the simplest and most straightforward solution, and also the least cost effective for the Yankees. They get no long-term control and no discount. They’d pay Gregorius what the arbitration system says he’s worth, monitor his rehab, and potentially open long-term contract talks at some point next year, which is exactly what they would’ve done had he been healthy. This is the path of least resistance. Lots of difficult salary arbitration situations are resolved with a one-year deal that kicks the can down the road.

The two multi-year contract scenarios have the most appeal, both for the Yankees and Gregorius, I imagine. The Yankees get control of a talented player at a hard-to-fill position beyond his rehab year in 2019. Gregorius gets himself a nice little guaranteed payday right after suffering a potentially career-altering injury. A two-year deal gives the Yankees that extra year of control but also allows Gregorius to test free agency fairly soon. That could be a good compromise. (It’s what I did in my offseason plan.)

As for a long-term extension that keeps Gregorius in pinstripes well into his 30s, the Yankees have been pretty stingy with multi-year deals for arbitration-eligible players — they’ve signed only two such players (Brett Gardner and Robinson Cano) to extensions in the last decade — and giving one to a guy coming off a major injury would represent quite a shift in team policy. If you’re going to do that though, meaning sign an injured player long-term, isn’t Didi the kinda guy you do it with? He’s pretty rad.

The downside is obvious though. Gregorius did just suffer a major injury that required surgery, and while we all expect him to recover well, there’s always a chance he doesn’t. What if there are setbacks? Mets infielder T.J. Rivera had Tommy John surgery last September and wasn’t able to make it back this year. What if Gregorius loses some skill? Perhaps he loses so much arm strength that second base, not shortstop, is his long-term home. At this point, a long-term contract carries much more risk for the Yankees than it does Gregorius.

Didi said he’s open to a long-term contract earlier this year and I imagine that is still the case. I don’t think blowing out his elbow has him thinking about going year-to-year, you know? Get paid while you can. As crass as it sounds, the injury could give the Yankees a bit of a discount, especially in the short-term. There’s a fine line between a discount and taking advantage of Gregorius, and potentially upsetting the relationship. It’s not the way anyone wanted it to go down, but, right now, a multi-year marriage seems very possible this offseason.

The Yankees have been trying for years — literally more than a decade — to develop a homegrown top of the rotation starter. Chien-Ming Wang was that guy for two seasons. Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes had their moments. Now, the Yankees finally have that young top of the rotation arm, and he showed in 2018 that he was no flash in the pan.

Luis Severino, who is still only 24 years old, finished third in the AL Cy Young voting behind Corey Kluber and Chris Sale last season thanks to 193.1 innings of dominance. He finished the season with a 2.98 ERA (3.07 FIP) and 230 strikeouts and became the first Yankees starter in 20 years to post a sub-3.00 ERA. Severino became everything the Yankees hoped he would become as a prospect.

In 2018, Severino followed his breakout year with an overall strong season, a strong season that included a 3.39 ERA (2.95 FIP) with 220 strikeouts 191.1 innings. It was an uneven season, however. Severino was even better in the first half this year than he was last year, though his second half was bad bordering on dreadful. The postseason wasn’t much better. Let’s review Severino’s way up then way down season.

A Cy Young Caliber First Half

On March 17th, Aaron Boone made the announcement everyone knew was coming: Severino would be the Opening Day starter. Masahiro Tanaka had started the last three Opening Days, but, when you have a season like Severino had in 2017, it’s tough to pass him up for Game One. At 24 years and 37 days, Severino became the Yankees’ youngest Opening Day starter since Lefty Gomez in 1932 (23 years and 138 days).

The Opening Day start went very well — Severino struck out seven Blue Jays and allowed just one hit in 5.2 scoreless innings while on a 90-ish pitch limit — as the Yankees snapped their six-year Opening Day losing streak. Severino had a little hiccup against the Red Sox on April 10th (five runs in five innings) but was otherwise excellent in April. His best start of the season was his first start in May, when he struck out ten in a shutout at Minute Maid Park.

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“(Severino) shoved it up our ass,” Alex Bregman told Chandler Rome after the game. Sounds about right. Six days later Severino struck out eleven across six innings in a win over the Red Sox. Three weeks after that he struck out eleven more Astros in seven innings in another win. Next time out he struck out ten Tigers in eight innings.

The seven-start stretch from May 2nd to June 4th was the most dominant stretch of Severino’s young career. He has ten career double-digit strikeout games and four of the ten came during this seven-start stretch. I mean, look at this. Look at the teams he had to face too:

Date

Result

IP

H

R

ER

BB

K

HR

May 2nd

4-0 win at HOU

9

5

0

0

1

10

0

May 8th

3-2 win vs. BOS

6

6

2

2

0

11

0

May 13th

6-2 win vs. OAK

6

5

1

1

2

7

0

May 19th

8-3 win at KC

6

8

3

3

2

6

0

May 25th

2-1 win vs. LAA

6

4

1

1

4

5

1

May 30th

5-3 win vs. HOU

7

4

2

2

1

11

1

June 4th

7-4 win at DET

8

4

2

1

0

10

0

Total

48

36

11

10

10

60

2

Goodness. Yeah, the Royals and Tigers stink, but that’s two starts against the Astros, one start against the Red Sox, one start against the Athletics, and one start against an Angels team that, at the time, was 28-23 and one of the highest scoring teams in MLB. Severino held opponents to a .202/.249/.275 line in the seven starts. That was as dominant a stretch as we’ve seen from a Yankee in a long time.

Severino was not quite that good the rest of the first half but he was very good — he struck out nine Rays in eight shutout innings on June 16th and nine Phillies in seven shutout innings on June 26th — and he was deservedly selected to the All-Star Game for the second straight season. He’s the first Yankees pitcher selected to multiple All-Star Games before his 25th birthday since Mel Stottlemyre.

Eighty-seven pitchers had thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title as of the day the All-Star Game rosters were announced. Here’s where Severino ranked:

ERA: 2.12 (third)

FIP: 2.47 (fourth)

Strikeouts: 29.8% (tenth)

fWAR: +4.3 (third)

bWAR: +5.0 (fourth)

He was a top five pitcher in baseball. Not in the American League, in all of baseball. He was that good. Severino threw a scoreless inning in his All-Star Game debut (he didn’t pitch in last year’s game) and he also caught Aaron Judge’s home run while warming up in the bullpen, which was pretty cool. Twenty starts with a 2.31 ERA (2.75 FIP) in 128.1 innings before the All-Star break. As good as it gets.

“Adversity, experience goes a long way when you can persevere,” Boone said in June. “And (Severino) in a lot of ways has persevered through a lot for a young man early in his career. And I think all of that has only made him a better pitcher and now we’re seeing in a lot of ways what an elite pitcher in the league looks like. He’s a special one.”

A Disastrous Second Half

Truth be told, Severino’s bad second half started in the first half. The Blue Jays roughed him up three runs in five innings on July 7th, then the Indians tagged him for four runs in five innings on July 12th. Severino allowed two home runs in each of those starts after allowing four homers total in his previous 12 starts.

Because he’s a young guy who threw a ton of innings last year and a ton of innings in the first half, the Yankees used the All-Star break to give Severino a nice long breather. He started against the Indians on July 12th and did not start again until July 23rd, with the All-Star Game appearance effectively acting as a between-starts bullpen session. The rest was well-intentioned. It didn’t help Severino’s performance.

The Rays battered Severino for seven runs (six earned) on eleven hits in five innings on July 23rd. Five days later the Royals — the Royals! — tagged him for six runs in 4.1 innings. Then came four runs in 5.2 innings against the Red Sox, and four runs in four innings against the Mets, and six runs (five earned) in 2.2 innings against the Athletics. The home run rate regression was not pretty:

Severino allowed ten home runs in 128.1 innings in the first half (0.70 HR/9 and 9.3% HR/FB). He allowed nine home runs in 63 innings in the second half (1.29 HR/9 and 15.3% HR/FB). The new Yankee Stadium has been open ten years now and only five times in those ten years has a Yankee thrown at least 100 innings in a season with a 0.70 HR/9 or better …

2013 Ivan Nova: 0.58 HR/9

2015 Nathan Eovaldi: 0.58 HR/9

2011 CC Sabathia: 0.64 HR/9

2015 Adam Warren: 0.69 HR/9

2009 CC Sabathia: 0.70 HR/9

… and while Severino has the talent to suppress home runs, doing so at that level at Yankee Stadium isn’t easy. Remember, offense was way down around the league from 2013 through the first half of 2016. Only two of those five seasons above fall outside that window and both are peak Sabathia. That’s what it takes to post a really good home run rate in Yankee Stadium. Be peak CC Sabathia, basically.

Some home run regression was inevitable but gosh, it was harsh. And it wasn’t just the home runs either. Opponents hit .209/.263/.316 (60 OPS+) against Severino in the first half and .291/.331/.490 (123 OPS+) against him in the second half. This year Matt Kemp hit .290/.338/.481 and started the All-Star Game, for comparison. Severino turned everyone he faced in the second half into Matt Kemp. Not great. Some numbers:

ERA

FIP

K%

BB%

GB%

Hard %

xwOBA

First Half

2.31

2.75

28.7

6.4

43.9

33.8

.285

Second Half

5.57

3.37

27.3

5.0

36.2

37.6

.315

Severino was on the very short list of the best pitchers in baseball last season and in the first half this season. Then he was one of the worst in the second half. Truly. The strikeout and walk rates were nice, sure, but 118 pitchers threw at least 50 innings after the All-Star break and only ten had a higher ERA than Severino. He was quite bad. It was night and day. It really was.

Despite the miserable second half, the Yankees gave the ball to Severino in the AL Wild Card Game — my hunch was they really wanted to start him the game, and when he closed out his regular season with three straight strong starts (four runs in 17.2 innings), it made it an easy call — and it went okay. He threw four scoreless innings against the Athletics but really had to grind. Four walks and 87 pitches in four innings plus two batters.

?

Severino’s ALDS Game Three start was a disaster. Boone didn’t help him out any with his slow hook (or by going to Lance Lynn with the bases loaded and no outs), but still, it was a disaster. The Red Sox tagged him for six runs in three innings plus three batters. Severino has a 6.26 ERA in 23 career postseason innings, which is definitely something people will obsess over even though we just watched David Price become a postseason hero and Justin Verlander had a 5.96 ERA in his first 23 career postseason innings. Whatever.

So Was He Tipping His Pitches Or What?

Every time a very good pitcher struggles, the question gets asked. Is he tipping his pitches? It’s become the first line of defense. This very good pitcher is suddenly pitching poorly? Ah well, he must be tipping his pitches! It’s become something of a crutch and, to their credit, the Yankees and Severino did not use pitch-tipping an excuse for his second half struggles. He was asked about it start after start and every time everyone said no.

It wasn’t until after the season ended that the Yankees finally acknowledged some pitch-tipping issues. Brian Cashman told BrendanKuty that Severino was “telegraphing” things and was “victimized by pitch-tipping at times.” Someone with the Yankees told Jon Heyman the Red Sox “had his pitches” in ALDS Game Three. Ben Harris (subs. req’d) did some fine detective work and found this:

See it? Probably not. I sure as hell didn’t. Severino stops for a brief instant to check the runner at third base … with no runner at third base. He did that when throwing fastballs only. For a slider or changeup, he checked the actual runner at second, then whipped his head right around and threw home. That was the tell. Harris also found that Severino would sometimes drop his glove a little lower while in the set position when throwing an offspeed pitch.

So yes, the Yankees acknowledged Severino tipped his pitches and there is some evidence of him actually doing it. Everyone likes to say so and so is tipping his pitches. To actually see it in action is another story. This is something the Yankees and Severino have to fix, obviously, but it is easier said than done. Tipping pitches happens subconsciously (duh) and you’re talking about changing muscle memory and things like that. Once a pitcher has to start thinking about his mechanics, he’s in trouble. It’s not as simple as “hey, stop doing that.” I wish it were.

Here’s the other thing: Pitch-tipping does not explain all of Severino’s second half issues. It would be cool if it did. The Yankees and Severino would have the explanation and could go to work fixing things. But what about his decline in fastball velocity?

In mid-July, Severino went from routinely sitting 98-99 mph to sitting 96-97 mph, which is still very good, but is down a few ticks from earlier in the season. It’s not a scary drop — Severino didn’t suddenly start sitting 91-92 mph, you know? — because, if anything, Severino went back to his 2017 first half velocity. It wasn’t until the second half last year that his velocity really jumped into the upper-90s and stayed there. That didn’t happen in the second half.

Also, what about his slider? Severino’s go-to pitch lost a little vertical movement in the second half and the spin rate dipped quite a bit too. His slider has an extraordinary spin rate. At 2,788 rpm, Severino’s slider had far and away the highest spin rate among pitchers who threw their slider at least 1,200 times the last two seasons. Marcus Stroman was a distant second at 2,703 rpm. Tyson Ross (2,662 rpm) and Justin Verlander (2,606 rpm) are the only others over 2,600 rpm. And yet, check out Severino’s slider spin rate this year:

Big dip in the second half. Severino went from averaging 2,913 rpm with his slider in the first half to 2,798 rpm in the second half. Similar to the fastball velocity, the slider still had an elite spin rate in the second half, but it wasn’t what we were used to seeing. This is the sorta thing I’m talking about when I say we spend too much time focusing on pitch-tipping. There’s more important stuff going on here. Why’d his velocity decline? Why’d his slider lose bite? Those are far more pressing matters to me.

I don’t think Severino was injured. Pedro Martinez said during one of his postseason broadcasts that Severino told him he was hurt, but that got shot down. “I don’t know where he got that, but I didn’t say (anything about being hurt) … I care about my arm and being healthy. So I’m not going to go out there and compete if I’m not healthy,” Severino said later than night when asked about Pedro’s claim. I’ve never seen an injured pitcher throwing mid-to-upper-90s with a nasty slider, which Severino still did in the second half. If he was injured, he looked better than any injured pitcher I’ve ever seen.

Personally, I think Severino just hit a wall and was fatigued. He’s a 24-year-old kid who, as of the All-Star break, had thrown 337.2 innings in the previous 16 months, many of them intense innings in a postseason race or the postseason itself. And, because the Yankees went to Game Seven of the ALCS last year, Severino had that much less time to recover in the offseason. Severino’s thrown 407.2 innings the last two years. That’s an awful lot of work for a young pitcher. He might have just run out of gas. Hopefully an offseason of rest fixes everything.

What’s Next?

Severino is entering his money makin’ years. He is arbitration-eligible for the first of four times as a Super Two this offseason, and MLBTR projects a $5.1M salary in 2019. When the Yankees sent Severino to Triple-A in 2016, they kept him down juuust long enough to push his free agency back from the 2021-22 offseason to the 2022-23 offseason. He will be arbitration-eligible four times instead of the usual three though, which equals more money.

The Yankees are not aggressive with long-term extensions for players under team control — the last player they extended was Brett Gardner the year before he was due to become a free agent — and that is especially true for pitchers. As best I can tell, these are the last two contract extensions the Yankees have given to pitchers in their pre-arbitration or arbitration years:

Javy Vazquez: Four years, $45M covering one arbitration year (2004) and three free agent years (2005-07).

Andy Pettitte: Three years, $25.5M with a club option covering three arbitration years (2000-02) and one free agent year (2003).

Vazquez was one year away from free agency when the Yankees got him from the Expos and they wanted to make sure they wouldn’t lose him after the season, hence the four-year contract before he ever even threw a pitch in pinstripes. Pettitte was Pettitte. He’d already been a key member of multiple World Series championship teams and the Yankees gained cost certainty over his arbitration years plus an option for a free agent year.

I don’t think the Yankees will look to sign Severino to an extension this offseason. Not because of his second half. Because it’s just not something they do. Granted, they haven’t had many young pitchers worth extending over the years — Chien-Ming Wang is the only one who jumps to mind and he had a history of serious shoulder problems in the minors — but they haven’t really extended anyone. Gardner, Robinson Cano, that’s about it over the last decade.

In all likelihood, the Yankees will sign Severino to a 2019 contract, see how he performs next year, then reevaluate whether to open up long-term contract discussions next offseason. Another season with 200+ strikeouts and an ERA and a FIP in the low-3.00s will probably force the team to think about a long-term deal a little more seriously. Right now, I think they stay year-to-year with Severino, and we’ll see him back out there on Opening Day 2019.

The Yankees will not have back-to-back AL Rookies of the Year. Earlier tonight, MLB and the BBWAA announced Angels slugger-slash-pitcher Shohei Ohtani has been named the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year. Ohtani received 25 of 30 first place votes. Miguel Andujar came in second and received the other five first place votes. Gleyber Torres finished third. Here are the full voting results.

Although Torres was the better all-around player this past season, Andujar was widely regarded as the biggest challenger Ohtani, who was simply incredible. The guy hit .285/.361/.564 (152 wRC+) with 22 homers and threw 51.2 innings with a 3.31 ERA (3.57 FIP) and 29.9% strikeouts. A deserving Rookie of the Year through and through. I would’ve voted for him.

Andujar and Gleyber both started the season in Triple-A and ended the season as important players for the Yankees. Andujar hit .297/.328/.527 (128 wRC+) with 27 homers and tied Fred Lynn’s AL rookie record with 47 doubles. He was probably the team’s most consistent hitter. Torres hit .271/.340/.480 (120 wRC+) with 24 homers. If you’re interested, here are the AL rookie WAR leaderboards:

Even though Andujar (or Torres) didn’t win, the Yankees did have two of the top three finishers in the Rookie of the Year voting, and that’s pretty darn cool. This is also the third straight year they’ve had a top two finisher in the voting. They’d never done that before. Gary Sanchez was the runner-up in 2016 and Aaron Judge of course won the award unanimously in 2017.

The last team with two top three finishers in the Rookie of the Year voting was the Dodgers with Corey Seager and Kenta Maeda in 2016. The last AL team to do it was the 2013 Rays with Wil Myers and Chris Archer. This is the first time since 1949 (Jerry Coleman third), 1950 (Whitey Ford second), and 1951 (Gil McDougald won) that the Yankees had a top three Rookie of the Year finisher in three straight years.

Furthermore, the Yankees have now had multiple players receive Rookie of the Year votes in one season for the third time in the last five years. Andujar and Torres did it this year, Judge and Jordan Montgomery did it last year, and Dellin Betances and Masahiro Tanaka did it in 2014. Hopefully Justus Sheffield and someone else (Jonathan Loaisiga? Mike King?) can do it again in 2019.

The Yankees do not have any finalists for the other major awards. Some of their guys will get votes, for sure, but they won’t finish in the top three. Managers of the Year will be announced tomorrow with the Cy Youngs and MVPs coming Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

Not counting that weird two-inning spot start by Chad Green that gave everyone an extra day of rest, the Yankees made it all the way until mid-June before needing a sixth starter last season. A minor left hamstring issue sent CC Sabathia to the disabled list for two weeks. His replacement, Luis Cessa, made his first start on June 18th, in the team’s 67th game of the season. Going that long without needing a sixth starter is pretty good!

This season the Yankees needed their sixth starter in early-May. Jordan Montgomery exited his May 1st start after one inning with an injury that would eventually lead to Tommy John surgery. Long man Domingo German came out of the bullpen, shoved for four innings in Houston, then joined the rotation. German pitched more this season than you may realize. His team ranks:

Who knew German finished fifth on the Yankees in innings? He made 14 starts and seven relief appearances and finished with a 5.57 ERA (4.39 FIP) and a very good strikeout rate (27.2%), a good walk rate (8.8%), and a not good ground ball rate (37.4%). Like seemingly everyone else, German was much better as a reliever (3.12 ERA and 3.22 FIP) than as a starter (6.19 ERA and 4.68 FIP).

A very good start to German’s stint in the rotation quickly gave way to inconsistency and a trip to the minors, and, eventually, the disabled list. German missed most of the second half with a nerve issue in his elbow before resurfacing as a seldom-used September call-up. Let’s review Little Sunday’s season.

A Candidate For An Opener

German replaced Montgomery in that May 1st game and threw four scoreless innings against the Astros. It was impressive. Five days later he made his first big league start and struck out nine in six no-hit innings against the Indians while being held to a pitch count (he worked out of the bullpen in previous weeks). This was the “wow the Yankees might really have something here” moment.

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German’s first start was incredible. Things went downhill after that. Next time out the Athletics tagged him for six run in five innings. In his next start after that, German gave up six runs in 3.2 innings to the Rangers. Following that stellar first start, German allowed at least four runs in each of his next four starts. He finished the year with more starts with 6+ runs allowed (four) than starts with fewer than three runs allowed (three).

In his 14 starts German had a 6.19 ERA (4.68 FIP) while averaging fewer than five innings per start (4.88 innings per start, to be exact.) To make matters worse, he consistently put the Yankees in an early hole. German allowed a first inning run in seven of his 14 starts. Four times he allowed multiple runs in the first inning. His numbers as a starting pitcher:

First Inning: 8.36 ERA (5.52 FIP) and .283/.348/.667 against

All Other Innings: 5.63 ERA (4.19 FIP) and .232/.314/.431 against

The ERA is still high after the first inning, for sure, but a little more help from the bullpen stranding runners would’ve been nice, plus everything else is much better. The batting lines do not compare and neither do the home run rates (2.57 HR/9 vs. 1.49 HR/9). That first inning of the game, the only inning in which a team is guaranteed to send their best hitters to the plate, was a big problem for German.

I wrote about using an opener for German once and mentioned it several more times. Getting German away from the top of the other team’s lineup the first time through the order seemed worthwhile. The Yankees could’ve used Jonathan Holder or Chad Green or David Robertson to open before giving the ball to German for innings two through whatever. Hopefully six, but even five would’ve sufficed. The Yankees never did that and German’s first inning woes against the other team’s best hitters put New York down early in half his starts. Harrumph.

The Measurables That Make You Want To Believe

Go watch that video of German’s start against the Indians again. This dude’s stuff is super legit. He’s got a mid-90s heater with some run, a snappy breaking ball that dives out of the zone, and a hard changeup with big time fade. Nothing the guy throws is straight and I suspect at least part of his command trouble stems from the liveliness of his stuff. When your pitches move like that, it can be hard to locate them.

The measurables on German’s stuff are awfully good. He checks all the boxes when it comes to velocity, spin rate, and things like that. Check it out (MLB averages in parentheses):

Fastball

Curveball

Changeup

Velocity

94.5 mph (92.9 mph)

81.9 mph (78.3 mph)

87.4 mph (84.2 mph)

Spin Rate

2,498 rpm (2,238 rpm)

2,507 rpm (2,493 mph)

2,392 rpm (1,774 rpm)

Whiffs-per-Swing

27.5% (19.7%)

41.3% (32.0%)

35.8% (31.1%)

Ground Balls

29.9% (39.5%)

38.2% (47.0%)

50.0% (50.4%)

There are two negatives in that table. One, German’s fastball and curveball ground ball rates are comfortably below-average. That doesn’t mean they’ll be below-average forever. They could improve with experience and natural development. In 2018 though, they were below-average. And two, German’s changeup spin rate is too high. You want a low spin rate on the changeup so it tumbles down and out of the zone. His spun too much this year.

Aside from that, man does it look good. Excellent velocity and comfortably above-average whiff-per-swing rates across the board. German’s fastball spin rate is very good. It’s right up there with Aroldis Chapman (2,499 rpm), Max Scherzer (2,486 rpm), and Corey Knebel (2,477 rpm). There is much more to life than velocity and spin rate, believe me, but you can’t fake it. Either you can throw the ball hard and make it spin, or you can’t. German can.

There’s a chance German will fall by the wayside like countless other great stuff/bad command pitchers. It happens. A lot. In German’s case, I can’t help but watch him and want to believe. The stuff is so good. This guy was a former top prospect with the Marlins, remember. Can German ever get over the hump and turn his impressive stuff into consistent MLB success? We’ve seen flashes, but it hasn’t happened yet.

What’s Next?

The Yankees and German have reached a crossroads. He is now out of minor league options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors without clearing waivers, and I see little chance of that happening. German is young enough (26) and his stuff is good enough that he’d get claimed, I think. Some rebuilding team would take a chance on him given the essentially free acquisition cost. I sure would.

One of three things will happen with German this offseason. One, he’ll stick with the Yankees and compete for a job in Spring Training. Two, they’ll trade him. Maybe as part of a larger package, maybe in a minor trade, or maybe as a way to unload salary a la Bryan Mitchell in the Chase Headley trade last winter. Or three, the Yankees will designate German for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot and (probably) lose him on waivers.

I’d say sticking with the Yankees is most likely, followed by a trade. I can’t see them giving German away for nothing on waivers. Not yet, anyway. Maybe things’ll change at midseason next year. Right now, I think he sticks or gets traded. I would really like to see German in a one inning “air it out” relief role. His command stinks, but you can hide bad command in the bullpen. Maybe German could out-stuff hitters a la Betances and Chapman as a reliever? I hope we get a chance to find out next season.

Baseball’s finances are broken. Despite record high revenue revenues, three large market teams (Cubs, Dodgers, Yankees) are reportedly going to limit their spending to some degree this offseason — the Cubs had to trade Drew Smyly and his $7M salary to pick up Cole Hamels’ option — and a three-time division winner (Indians) is said to be open to trading veterans to get their payroll in order. Teams that should be spending aren’t.

Furthermore, the Seattle Mariners, a team that appears capable of competing for a Wild Card spot next year, is embarking on a rebuild. They have the longest active postseason drought in North American sports — they haven’t been to the playoffs since Ichiro’s rookie year in 2001 — and, rather than make a push to win while Robinson Cano and other well-paid veterans are still productive, the Mariners are going to rebuild.

“We’re open-minded to different ways we can get better,” said GM Jerry Dipoto to Greg Johns and Maria Guardado at the GM Meetings when asked about a rebuild. “But what we’re hoping to achieve is to re-imagine our roster to look at it in terms of what is our quickest path to a championship club … If that means in 2019 we field as competitive a team as we can while earmarking and gathering talent, we’re not looking to rip our club down.”

The rebuild — sorry, the “re-imagining” — started last week when Seattle shipped Mike Zunino to the Rays for Mallex Smith. Zunino is a very flawed hitter, no doubt, but he’s a quality defender and a solid player at a hard-to-fill position. Trading two years of Zunino for four of Smith is not a move a team trying to contend next year would make. It is much easier to find an outfielder like Mallex Smith in free agency than it is a catcher like Mike Zunino.

Anyway, with the roster transition underway in Seattle, reports indicate the next Mariner on the move could be left-hander James Paxton. The pitching-needy Yankees have interest in Paxton and, according to Ken Rosenthal, they’ve already discussed him with the Mariners. Other teams are in the mix too, of course, including the Astros. Does Paxton make sense for the Yankees? Well, of course, but how much sense? Let’s dig in.

Background

Paxton is a 6-foot-4 southpaw who took an interesting path to the big leagues. He grew up in Vancouver and played his college ball at the University of Kentucky. The Blue Jays selected Paxton with the 37th overall pick in the 2009 draft — that was the compensation pick they received for the Yankees signing A.J. Burnett — but were unable to get him to agree to a contract prior to the signing deadline.

The NCAA declared Paxton ineligible for his senior year at Kentucky because he used an agent (Scott Boras) to negotiate on his behalf with Toronto, so he spent the spring of 2010 with the independent Grand Prairie AirHogs in Texas. The Mariners selected him in the fourth round of the 2010 draft and he started his climb up the minor league ladder. Paxton, who turned 30 last week, owns a career 3.42 ERA (3.13 FIP) in 582.1 big league innings.

Performance

After making his MLB debut in September 2013, Paxton went up-and-down a bit and battled injuries the next two seasons. It wasn’t until 2016 that he really established himself as a legitimate big league starter, with these last two years cementing him as an above-average pitcher. He’s not in the Chris Sale/Clayton Kershaw class of lefties, but he is quite good. Here are Paxton’s last three seasons:

IP

ERA

FIP

K%

BB%

GB%

HR/9

RHB wOBA

LHB wOBA

2016

121

3.79

2.80

22.9

4.7

48.1

0.67

.303

.319

2017

136

2.98

2.61

28.3

6.7

44.9

0.60

.273

.210

2018

160.1

3.76

3.24

32.3

6.5

39.6

1.29

.268

.377

Paxton has traded some ground balls for strikeouts — that seems to be a very common trend throughout baseball as pitchers emphasize strikeouts and hitters emphasize getting the ball airborne — and this year there was a huge uptick in home runs. Prior to this season Paxton was a steady 0.60-ish HR/9 guy with an 8%-ish HR/FB rate. This year those numbers basically doubled. A graph:

You can partially blame the Yankees for the uptick in homers. They faced Paxton twice this past season and took him deep four times in eleven innings. Would’ve been five had Mitch Haniger not robbed Giancarlo Stanton of a homer. In all seriousness, that’s a large increase in home runs. The jump in HR/FB rate indicates it’s not as simple as “more fly balls equal more homers” either. The fly balls were leaving the yard more often.

The numbers against left-handed batters this season appear to be straight sample size noise. Paxton faced only 112 lefties in 2018 — that was roughly 20% of all batters he faced — and only 63 of those 112 lefties put the ball in play. Those 63 balls in play produced a .492 (!) BABIP despite a hard contact rate in line with his career norms. Paxton’s expected wOBA against lefties from 2016-18: .315, .242, .265. Compare that to the actual wOBAs in the table above.

Paxton’s home run problem did include lefties — he allowed three homers to those 112 lefty batters this season after allowing three homers to the 308 lefties he faced from 2013-17 — but again, it’s a small sample. I am okay with chalking up this year’s issues with same-side hitters to sample size weirdness. Sixty-three balls in play and a .492 BABIP? Come on. The overall home run issue is another matter. That I wouldn’t be so quick to brush aside.

Current Stuff

In this era of declining fastball usage — the Yankees have taken it to the extreme with their anti-fastball philosophy, but, generally speaking, fastball usage has declined around the league — Paxton is a throwback. He throws his mid-90s four-seamer roughly 60% of the time and his 88-90 mph cutter around 20% of the time, so that’s approximately 80% fastballs. A low-80s curveball is his breaking ball. Here’s his pitch selection over the years:

Paxton has more or less shelved his slider and changeup and hey, it’s working for him. Oddly enough, he uses the cutter more against lefties than righties. Going into this I assumed he used the cutter to pitch righties inside a la CC Sabathia, but nope. I mean, he does do that, but he generally attacks righties with the four-seamer and curveball. Lefties — the few lefties he faces — get the four-seamer, cutter, and curveball. Huh.

On the spin rate front, Paxton is roughly league average with his four-seamer (2,283 rpm vs. 2,263 rpm average) whereas his curveball is comfortably below average. His curveball had a 1,949 rpm average spin rate in 2018. The MLB average was 2,493 rpm. Despite that, Paxton’s curveball had a comfortably above-average 39.9% whiffs-per-swing rate (MLB average is 32.0%) because he sets it up well with elevated fastballs. Check it out:

Ask hitters and they’ll tell you the easiest curveballs to hit are the ones with a hump, meaning curveballs that come out of the pitcher’s hand and rise up a bit before breaking down. There’s no hump in Paxton’s curveball. It comes out on the same plane as his fastball. The hitter reads fastball, his brain tells his arms to start swinging at the fastball, and then the curveball breaks down below the zone. It is brutally effective when executed properly.

In what was undoubtedly the best two-start stretch by any pitcher in 2018, Paxton struck out 16 Athletics on May 2nd and no-hit the Blue Jays on May 9th. No one has made a “James Paxton 2018 highlights” video yet, so here’s every out of the no-hitter, which best shows his full arsenal at work (here’s the 16-strikeout video, if you’re interested).

?

The heavy fastball usage would seem to make Paxton a less than ideal target for the Yankees given their anti-fastball philosophy, but remember, they acquired J.A. Happ and Lance Lynn at the trade deadline, and they are two of the most extreme fastball pitchers in baseball. The 2018 fastball usage leaderboard:

Lance Lynn: 88.9%

James Paxton: 81.5%

David Price: 74.9%

Jon Lester: 74.8%

J.A. Happ: 73.3%

The anti-fastball Yankees traded for two of those five pitchers this past season and now they’re interested in acquiring another. I reckon the Lynn and Happ pickups had more to do with the market than their pitching style — you can only acquire guys who are available and they were available — but the important thing is the Yankees let them be. They let them continue throwing heaters. They didn’t force the anti-philosophy on them.

Paxton does not appear to be a good fit for the anti-fastball lifestyle. His best pitch is the four-seam fastball and his curveball is a good pitch, but not a truly dominant pitch. Paxton’s success stems from his fastball and having him scale back on that pitch doesn’t seem like a good idea. That doesn’t disqualify him as a Yankees’ trade target though. Lynn and Happ showed the Yankees are flexible. Not everyone has to get the organizational stamp.

Injury History

Those 160.1 innings Paxton threw this season are almost a career high. He threw 171.2 innings in 2016 and 169.2 innings back in 2013. Paxton has landed on the disabled list at least once each year from 2014-18. The injury list:

2014: Missed four months with a lat strain.

2015: Missed close to four months with a strained tendon in his left middle finger.

2016: Missed two weeks after taking a line drive to the pitching elbow.

2017: Missed a month with a forearm strain and another month with a strained pectoral.

2018: Missed three weeks with back inflammation and two weeks after taking a line drive to his left forearm.

I suppose the good news is Paxton’s elbow and shoulder are structurally sound. He did miss a month with a forearm strain last year and forearm strains are a common precursor to elbow trouble and Tommy John surgery, but Paxton returned from that injury and has had no other elbow/forearm trouble since. Well, no other trouble aside from the comebacker this season, which is just bad luck.

The best predictor of future injury is past injury and there are enough muscle strains and whatnot here to suggest Paxton might never be a 200-inning guy. That’s okay. There is a ton of value in being an above-average starter for 160-170 innings. We’d all love 200-inning guys but they are becoming increasingly hard to find. Teams are focused more on quality innings rather than quantity of innings, and Paxton can provide quality.

Contract Status

Paxton has four years and 151 days of service time (written as 4.151), which means two things. One, he has two years of control remaining before free agency. And two, this offseason he is arbitration-eligible for the third time as a Super Two. MLBTR projects a $9M salary in 2019. That likely puts his 2020 salary in the $15M range. Below-market salaries, no doubt, but not super duper cheap either.

Also, for what it’s worth, Paxton has two minor league options remaining. Those are valueless though. For starters, if you have to think about sending him to Triple-A at some point, something’s gone horribly wrong. You’re not trading for this guy to be an up-and-down depth arm, you know? And secondly, 21 more days of service time gets Paxton to five full years and gives him the right to refuse an assignment to the minors.

What’s It Going To Cost?

(Stephen Brashear/Getty)

The million dollar question. There have been surprising few starters traded with two years of control in recent years. I’ve found three and, honestly, only one seems instructive for Paxton. The three:

The Odorizzi trade was very clearly a salary dump. That doesn’t help us at all. The Tigers were widely ripped for getting such a light package for Fister, though Ray has worked out after being flipped to the Diamondbacks in the Didi Gregorius three-team trade. At the time though, it was an underwhelming package for a quality pitcher. The same is true with Cole. That four-player package seemed awfully light at the time and it looks even worse now.

Maybe the Fister and Cole trades indicate the price to get Paxton will be lower than expected? Paxton is at +10.9 WAR and 582.1 career innings right now. Fister was at +14.2 WAR in 818.2 innings at the time of his trade and Cole was at +11.5 WAR in 782.1 innings. The Mariners would understandably ask for a top prospect or quality young MLB player to lead a Paxton trade package. That’s what I’d want. Perhaps the Cole trade is enough of a precedent to come back with a quantity over quality counteroffer? I get the sense a bidding war will make a Cole package unlikely.

Does He Make Sense For The Yankees?

For sure. And, to be honest, I’m more on board with Paxton as a trade target now than I was before writing this post. The injury history isn’t as scary as I thought — for some reason I thought he had more elbow and shoulder problems — and I am forever down with starters who can get swings and misses with their fastball in the strike zone. Paxton doesn’t have an extreme platoon split and quality lefties are always a good mix with Yankee Stadium.

I have two concerns with Paxton. One, what’s up with that home run spike? That happened while he pitched his home games in Safeco Field. What happens with a move into Yankee Stadium? And two, I do worry there is some Michael Pineda in Paxton, meaning sexy peripherals but more hittable than the stuff would lead you to believe because he’s around the middle of the plate so much. Lots of strikeouts, few walks, and an ERA consistently higher than his FIP. Pineda and Paxton have that in common.

The Yanks are looking to add two more starters even after re-signing Sabathia and Paxton will probably be the best starter to hit the trade market this winter. If I had to pick one, I would prefer signing Patrick Corbin for just money over trading prospects for Paxton. This is not an either/or though. The Yankees could do both, sign Corbin and trade for Paxton, at least in theory. I don’t buy Paxton as an ace. He’s an above-average starter though, and he would undoubtedly make the Yankees a better team.

Injury Update: Gary Sanchez (shoulder) underwent debridement surgery. The injury was to his non-throwing shoulder and the surgery comes with a three-month rehab. Sanchez is expected to be ready for Opening Day.

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The GM Meetings are over and now we have about a month to wait before all hell breaks loose at the Winter Meetings. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s the Official RAB 2018-19 Offseason Plan. I’m linking back to it here only because it took forever to write and I don’t want it to be forgotten about. Anyway, here’s some news to close out the week.

Steinbrenner on Today’s Game ballot

George Steinbrenner is on this year’s Today’s Game era committee ballot, the Hall of Fame announced. Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Charlie Manuel, Lou Piniella, and Lee Smith are also on the ballot. The 16-person committee will meet during the Winter Meetings next month and announce their Hall of Fame inductees (if any) on December 9th. Twelve votes are needed for induction.

“I think he is a Hall of Famer … (He) was very impactful. Both for this franchise and this industry and clearly a Hall of Famer from my viewpoint,” said Brian Cashman to Ken Davidoff earlier this week. This is the fourth time Steinbrenner is up for a Hall of Fame vote, with his most recent rejection coming in 2016. I think George belongs in the Hall of Fame and I can understand why some might be on the fence, but, ultimately, when you tell the story of baseball history, you can’t skip over Steinbrenner. Warts and all, he was a towering figure in the game.

Rule changes on hold until end of offseason

According to Ronald Blum, discussions regarding potential rule changes for the 2019 season have been put on hold, likely until right before the start of Spring Training. MLB and the MLBPA must agree on rule change proposals, however, if the union rejects an on-field rule change, the league can unilaterally implement the proposal in one year. Here are the rule changes that were discussed during the GM Meetings, via Blum and JonMorosi:

A limit on defensive shifts.

A 20-second pitch clock.

Restrictions regarding the use of technology during games.

Moving the trade deadline to mid-August and eliminating trade waivers.

Alterations to the 10-day DL because teams abuse the hell out of it.

The Astros were busted recording the other team’s dugout during the postseason, and there have been issues with teams using technology to steal signs for years now. Remember the Apple Watch thing with the Red Sox last year? Like that. MLB and the MLBPA want to stop that. Joel Sherman writes that, after the Astros incident, MLB put an official in each team’s replay room during the postseason, and did not allow teams to pipe their center field camera angle into their replay room. Those measures could become permanent. We’ll see.

As for everything else, I am a hard no on limiting shifts and a hard yes on a pitch clock. Pitchers take too damn long. Speed it up. Limiting shifts though? Nah. I am against anything that limits creativity. Did MLB ban breaking balls when they found out half the league couldn’t hit sliders? Nope. The strong will survive. Moving the trade deadline seems like a solution in search of a problem. What’s wrong with trade waivers? The dog days of summer can be a real grind. Trade waivers help keep things interesting. How much longer do we need to give teams to decide to buy or sell at the deadline? July 31st is fine.

Three Yankees on top Appy Prospects list

Baseball America (subs. req’d) continued their look at the top 20 prospects in each minor league with the rookie Appalachian League not too long ago. Rays SS Wander Franco claimed the top spot. Three Yankees made the list: OF Everson Pereira (No. 9), RHP Luis Medina (No. 13), and RHP Luis Gil (No. 19). RHP Luis Rijo, who went to the Twins in the Lance Lynn trade, is No. 14. I wrote about Pereira earlier this week. Here’s a snippet of Medina’s scouting report:

What keeps scouts interested with Medina is a fastball that sits in the 95-96 mph range and touches 100, with impressive plane and sink. He’s also got a 60-grade curveball and a changeup that could become a third plus pitch as well … Medina has a good arm action but simply struggles to repeat his delivery with any kind of consistency.

Medina is still only 19 and his numbers with rookie Pulaski this year weren’t good. He threw 36 innings with a 6.25 ERA (6.46 FIP) and high strikeout (25.5%) and walk (25.0%) rates. That’s 47 strikeouts and 46 walks in 36 innings. He also uncorked 12 wild pitches, so yeah. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Medina has some Dellin Betances in him. The stuff is elite. The control and delivery are far from it. The potential reward is very high but he is long-term project.

As for Gil, the Yankees acquired the 20-year-old from Minnesota in the Jake Cave trade, and he had a 1.37 ERA (3.28 FIP) with 35.8% strikeouts and 15.4% walks in 39.1 innings with Pulaski. “Gil’s best pitch is a fastball that sits in the mid 90s and touches triple digits, exploding in the zone late on hitters out of a loose arm action. He throws a fringe-average curveball in the low 80s and is still in the early stages of developing a changeup,” says the write-up. I’ve seen reports describe Gil’s curveball as above-average, so who knows. Gil is just another lower level hard-thrower in a system full of them.